Grace Fulford our amazing Canadian volunteer researcher who has worked tirelessly to help Canadian Roots UK reunite WW2 children with their Canadian roots has retired. With the help Grace has given over the past 6 years many WW2 children now have answers to questions that had been denied them for too long. So from all the clients that you have helped over the years and from Canadian Roots UK, a very big THANK YOU.

-oOo-

Sadly I must inform you
that Chris Vowles founder of Canadian Roots UK passed away peacefully on
the 20th September 2014.

However, I can assure
you that his tireless work to help all those seeking answers to find
their roots will continue

Gathering of hardy folks along the seafront
this morning to remember the Canadian servicemen and women of WW1 & 2

11th of the 11th 2013

Worthing, West Sussex, England.

REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY 10th Nov 2013

Canadian Roots UK lay a wreath at Worthing War
Memorial

-oOo-

SAD LOSS OF LLOYD RAINS

In
MemoryOfLloydVictorRains

Lloyd
VictorRainspassedawaypeacefullyon Good
Friday,
March
29th,2013, at12:20
pm,attheage of

Heenrolled
in
the
Canadian
armyat17andwasa memberof thePPCLI,
the PrincessPatricia
Canadian
LightInfantry,
and served
in
thecampaigns
fromSicilythrough
to
the
LiberationofHolland,where
he methis wife
to beattheend ofthe war,married
in
Haarlem,
Holland
on
December24,1945. Theylater
moved
to Canadaandraised
a familyin
Hamilton,
Ontario.

British
newspaper salutes Canada . . .this is a
good read.It is
funny how it took someone in England toput it
into words......
Salute to a brave and modest nation - Kevin Myers , 'The Sunday
Telegraph' LONDON
:

Until the
deaths of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan , probably almost
no one outside their home country had been aware that Canadian
troops are deployed in the region.And as
always, Canada will bury its dead, just as the rest of the world, as
always will forget its sacrifice, just as it always forgets nearly
everything Canada ever does.. It seems that Canada 's historic
mission is to come to the selfless aid both of its friends and of
complete strangers, and then, once the crisis is over, to be well
and truly ignored.Canada is
the perpetual wallflower that stands on the edge of the hall,
waiting for someone to come and ask her for a dance. A fire breaks
out, she risks life and limb to rescue her fellow dance-goers, and
suffers serious injuries. But when the hall is repaired and the
dancing resumes, there is Canada, the wallflower still, while those
she once helped glamorously cavort across the floor, blithely
neglecting her yet again.That is the
price Canada pays for sharing the North American continent with the
United States , and for being a selfless friend of Britain in two
global conflicts.

For much of the 20th century, Canada was torn in two different
directions: It seemed to be a part of the old world, yet had an
address in the new one, and that divided identity ensured that it
never fully got the gratitude it deserved.

Yet it's purely voluntary contribution to the cause of freedom in
two world wars was perhaps the greatest of any democracy. Almost 10%
of Canada 's entire population of seven million people served in the
armed forces during the First World War, and nearly 60,000 died. The
great Allied victories of 1918 were spearheaded by Canadian troops,
perhaps the most capable soldiers in the entire British order of
battle.

Canada was repaid for its enormous sacrifice by downright neglect,
it's unique contribution to victory being absorbed into the popular
memory as somehow or other the work of the 'British.'The Second
World War provided a re-run. The Canadian navy began the war with a
half dozen vessels, and ended up policing nearly half of the
Atlantic against U-boat attack. More than 120 Canadian warships
participated in the Normandy landings, during which 15,000 Canadian
soldiers went ashore on D-Day alone.Canada
finished the war with the third-largest navy and the fourth largest
air force in the world. The world thanked Canada with the same
sublime indifference as it had the previous time.

Canadian participation in the war was acknowledged in film only if
it was necessary to give an American actor a part in a campaign in
which the United States had clearly not participated - a touching
scrupulousness which, of course, Hollywood has since abandoned, as
it has any notion of a separate Canadian identity.So it is a
general rule that actors and filmmakers arriving in Hollywood keep
their nationality - unless, that is, they are Canadian. Thus Mary
Pickford, Walter Huston, Donald Sutherland, Michael J. Fox, William
Shatner, Norman Jewison, David Cronenberg, Alex Trebek, Art
Linkletter, Mike Weir and Dan Aykroyd have in the popular perception
become American, and Christopher Plummer, British.

It is as if, in the very act of becoming famous, a Canadian ceases
to be Canadian, unless she is Margaret Atwood, who is as unshakably
Canadian as a moose, or Celine Dion, for whom Canada has proved
quite unable to find any takers.Moreover,
Canada is every bit as querulously alert to the achievements of its
sons and daughters as the rest of the world is completely unaware of
them. The Canadians proudly say of themselves - and are unheard by
anyone else - that 1% of the world's population has provided 10% of
the world's peacekeeping forces.Canadian
soldiers in the past half century have been the greatest
peacekeepers on Earth - in 39 missions on UN mandates, and six on
non-UN peacekeeping duties, from Vietnam to East Timor, from Sinai
to Bosnia .Yet the only
foreign engagement that has entered the popular non-Canadian
imagination was the sorry affair in Somalia , in which
out-of-control paratroopers murdered two Somali infiltrators. Their
regiment was then disbanded in disgrace - a uniquely Canadian act of
self-abasement for which, naturally, the Canadians received no
international credit.So who today
in the United States knows about the stoic and selfless friendship
its northern neighbour has given it in Afghanistan ?Rather like
Cyrano de Bergerac , Canada repeatedly does honourable things for
honourable motives, but instead of being thanked for it, it remains
something of a figure of fun. It is the Canadian way, for which
Canadians should be proud, yet such honour comes at a high cost.
This past year more grieving Canadian families knew that cost all
too tragically well.Lest we
forget.

July 28, 2009

Canadian War
Children Of World War Two

Canadian Roots UK is a self help
website set up to help people in
the UK trace their
fathers/family in Canada. It
also provides information to
Canadians who may be looking for
information about babies
fathered in the UK during World
War 2.

The web site hopes to
serve as a clearinghouse for
those searching and those being
searched. Most of the
information on the site may be
found by clicking on "Searches."
You will find two kinds of
searches: fathers/family looking
for children and war-time
children looking for their
fathers.

One typical example is "Joan
Barrow is looking for her father
Sergeant Richard Hartigan a
Canadian soldier who was
stationed in Littlehampton, West
Sussex, England during WW2.
Joan doesn't know much about her
father only that he was a school
teacher in civilian life and was
from Montreal in Canada."
The full query is significantly
longer, adding more details. The
query is also accompanied by a
photograph of the mother,
father, and child that was taken
when the child was a few weeks
old.

This is an interesting
site, although also a bit sad.
It is great to see technology
and the Internet being used in
an attempt to reunite families.